* * * * *
I remember what they were clapping about. It happened that I came out
from the city that day. The weather was so fine, I felt as if I must
take one more look at the country, before winter came and spoiled every
bright leaf and flower. I think the flowers and leaves seem very
precious in the fall, when we know frost is waiting to kill them.
It was quite a disappointment to find the people all gone, and I was
glad enough when at last the old hay-cart came rattling down the lane.
Such a jolly set as they were! I jumped them out at the back of the
cart.
That little Tommy was always such a funny chap. Just like his father for
all the world. When the girls took their things off, he got himself into
an old sack, and then tied on one of his mother’s checked aprons, and
began to parade round. When Lucy Maria saw him she took him up stairs
and put more things on him, and dressed him up for Mother Goose. I don’t
know when I’ve seen anything so droll. They put skirts on him, till they
made him look like a little fat old woman. He had a black silk
handkerchief pinned over his shoulders, and a ruffle round his neck, and
an old-fashioned, high-crowned nightcap on. Then spectacles. They put a
peaked piece of dough on the end of his nose, to make it look like a
hooked nose, and then set him down in the arm-chair. He kept sober as a
judge. Bubby Short laughed till he tumbled down and rolled himself
across the floor. Lucy Maria sent us out of the room to see something in
the yard, and when we came back, there was a little old man with his hat
on, and a cane, sitting opposite Mother Goose. He was made of a
stuffed-out overcoat, trousers with sticks of wood in them, and boots.
“That is Father Goose,” Lucy Maria said. Then Bubby Short had to tumble
down again; and this time he rolled way through the entry, out on the
doorstep!
Then came such a pleasant evening! Aunt Phebe said ’t was a pity for
Grandmother to go to getting supper, they might as well all come over.
Where anybody had to boil the teakettle and set the table, half a dozen
more or less didn’t matter much.
So we all ate supper together, and it seemed to me I never did get into
such a jolly set! Uncle Jacob and Aunt Phebe were so funny that we could
hardly eat. And in the evening--But ’t is no use. If I begin to tell,
and tell all I want to, there won’t be any room left for the letters.
Now comes quite a gap in the correspondence. There must have been many
letters written about this time, which were, unfortunately not
preserved. The next in order I find to be a short epistle from Bubby
Short, written, it would seem, soon after the winter holidays.
* * * * *
_A Letter from Bubby Short._